


Dangers of a Ballpit

by MrBriss



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Ball Pit, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Overprotective Parents, a parade of pachyderms, mycroft needs incentives, ring tosses and cakes, these tags im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5678503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrBriss/pseuds/MrBriss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Your OTP simultaneously leaping into a ball pit after hearing their child scream in distress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dangers of a Ballpit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrChinnery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrChinnery/gifts).



“Claire, look, Da’s going to win you that bear.”

He was of course going to win that bear.

“He’s tried six times already but this time he’s gonna get it, isn’t he?”

The seventh time would indeed be a charm.

“But he needs to throw…”

“Gregory." Mycroft dropped his gaze and crossed his arms at his husband who chuckled, bouncing baby Claire in his arms. 

“C’mon, Myc, toss the ring and we'll get something to eat.”

“I am simply weighing my options,” murmured Mycroft Holmes, perpetual ice man and British government, as he bent his knees slightly and lifted his arm again, a plastic red ring balanced at the tips of his fingers. He eyed the potential targets. He could aim for the red peg which was closer but worth only five points while the blue peg off to the left was worth at least ten, if not triple that if he could just angle his wrist properly.

Greg smiled and made a silly face to Claire as his husband fell back into his thoughts. They’d been at the ring toss booth for over ten minutes and Mycroft had yet to land a ring on one of the pegs. After the kids had taken their turns (five year old Scott making one and winning a rubber snake for it and baby Claire settling for placing her ring on Greg’s nose), Greg persuaded Mycroft to give it go. At first he’d refused, repeating “really, Gregory?” and “love, this is ridiculous” but Claire wore him down when she asked him (well, gurgled and pointed) for the blue bear. 

Unable to refuse her dark brown eyes and small pout, Mycroft had picked up the ring, aimed... 

And missed. 

Completely. 

Greg tried hard not to laugh as Mycroft developed a pout of his own. He threw again… and again… and again. As each ring bounced and rolled off, Greg thought his husband would walk away from the carnival game (perhaps later to make a note to have all ring tosses this side of the country shut down) but to his surprise the ginger man had sniffed, handed his coat to Greg, and begun to roll up his shirt sleeves.

"What are-?" Greg had asked as his husband proceeded to take what appeared to be a fencing position. “What are you doing?”

“I,” Mycroft replied, “am going to win that plush bear.”

Turning to the game manager, Mycroft paid for another round and presumed to spend the next ten minutes agonizing over trajectory and wind speeds and a fairly large amount of figures Greg never thought possible to associate with a ring toss.

Greg looked down as someone tugged at his pant leg and a small voice grumbled, “Lestraaaade.” 

Scott looked up at him seriously from under his mop of curls.

“Taking after your uncle, yeah?” 

The boy tried to keep up his expression but failed, “Da?”

“What’s up?” Greg said, still half-watching Mycroft out of the corner of his eye.

“Can I go to the ball pit?” The boy asked speedily, pointing somewhere off in the distant crowd.

“Er…” Greg looked back to deliberate with Mycroft but as a rather large harrumph sounded, Greg thought it best to leave the man to his own. “Yeah, course.”

The little boy ran off, leaving Greg and Claire to motivate Mycroft, if not tease him a little.

Greg coughed into his hand, “Don’t miss.”

Mycroft closed his eyes with a sigh. “Must you?”

“Because if you miss,” Greg continued, an idea forming. “We’ll miss out on the cakes.”

His eyelids flew open again and he stared at the older man.

Greg continued conversationally, as if he had not just begun what was to Mycroft on the level of a hostage negotiation. “The cakes may sell out.”

He didn’t believe him. Couldn’t believe. Mycroft lifted his head and raised one eyebrow. “There are… numerous cakes...”

“But they are delicious. Who knows how many, the best, may already be sold off…”

Mycroft's other eyebrow lifted to join its friend.

Greg wiggled his.

Mycroft cleared his throat, swiveling back to the ring toss. Mycroft straightened, smoothed imaginary creases on his shirt, and lifted his arm.

Greg leaned down to whisper, “Here he goes” to Claire.

No room for error.

A twist of the wrist and...

The ring fell onto the blue peg with a resounding snap.

Mycroft grinned, letting out a huge breath he didn't know he’d been holding. Greg let out a cheer and Claire followed him, shrieking happily as she was met with her blue bear by the game manager.

Mycroft took his coat back from Greg and pulled it on. He shrugged casually as he fell into step beside them once again. “The seventh time is always a charm.” 

In response, Greg just held out the baby to Mycroft who immediately fell apart into silly faces holding his little girl, “Yes, we won that, didn’t we? It was difficult, but we did manage to win this bear. It really came down to a game of incentives, didn’t it? Incentives meaning what it takes for one to be encouraged to-”

“Da!” The scream cut through the air, causing everyone at the carnival to still. 

The fathers’ heads snapped to attention.

The cry of distress was alarming.

The child’s voice alarmingly familiar. 

“Oh, my god.” Greg choked. “The ballpit.” He bolted, sprinting off towards the cry.

“Gregory!” It took only a moment for Mycroft’s brain to pull the pieces together, another for Anthea to appear by Mycroft's side. Without hardly a word, he handed Claire to her before taking off after his husband.

Their hearts pounding in their chests, the men flew across the carnival. Down one row of booths and up another, they squinted and peered through the happy crowd of carnival goers in search of the colored tub of doom. A rather perturbed bearded lady pulled Mycroft out of the way of an oncoming unicycle rider juggling knives. An umbrella handle looped under Greg’s arm as he drew dangerously close to a pie toss and the two men took off in the other direction. 

Finally onlookers gasped as the tall man in his bespoke suit very nearly crashed into the handsome silver haired man in front of him.

Mycroft’s eyes widened. A parade of pachyderms were proceeding past them. A wall of impenetrable mass. It would take hours, days, for such a force to move on. A crowd was developing to watch the procession of creatures and Mycroft could see no other route. By that time, their son-

“Myc.”

Broken from his thoughts, Mycroft turned to see Greg step round the corner of a large sign advertising funnel cakes. “Gregory?”

“Myc, it's over here."

Indeed, the ball pit lay just round the corner.

Greg leapt over a bench to take the ball pit steps two at a time. Mycroft coming up right behind him.

They stood stopped in front of what seemed an immense sea of colored plastic. 

Time stilled. 

With a great intake of breath, Greg belly flopped into the middle of it, sank, and came up for air. Greg felt the pit shuffle as Mycroft swan dived gracefully in behind him. They both shouted for Scott, shoving their way through the plastic orbs that had taken their first born.

Mycroft's voice broke, “He’s drownt!”

“Wait, shhh.” Greg held up a hand, brown eyes roving the surface of the sea.

An area off to Mycroft’s left shifted. Greg opened his mouth but Mycroft had already yelped, diving immediately. A pair of swaying Oxfords the only thing left to be seen.

Greg hurried to get over to them when there was a sudden whoosh and he was thrust back by the polysynthetic tidal wave. Mycroft emerged, holding a fighting Scott around the waist.

"Unhand me...." Twisting around, Scott recognized the man holding him, “Dad!”, then smiled wider at the sight of both his fathers in the ballpit. A perfect opportunity to show them his find.

“Look, look!” The boy thrust forward the sticky collection of coins he'd collected in his shirt. “Look how old this one is! And,” the boy continued, unaware of Mycroft who was now treading under the weight of him, “There should be at least four more!”

Mycroft plucked a ball from inside his collar. “He’s going to need at least four showers.”

Greg and Mycroft met eyes, the corners of their mouths lifting. Scott continued to speak vibrantly about his collection and handed a few to each of them before tumbling back into the welter.

Greg shuffled over, shining one of Scott’s coins against his shirt sleeve. “We’re coming back next year.”

“Yes,” Mycroft answered, watching serenely as Greg took Claire back from Anthea who had just appeared beside the pit. Claire proudly placed her new favorite bear atop Mycroft’s shoulder. “Yes, I suppose we are.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've sat on this ridiculous fluffy fic for /ages/ and decided to post it between classes. Comments are always appreciated! Thanks ever so much for reading.
> 
> PS. I'm American so please let me know if there are any mistakes in the language and/or situation so that they can be fixed


End file.
